Situated at the outskirts of Baroda, this 65,000 Sq. Ft land is surrounded with a lot of greenery. The brief was to create an open plan, which could communicate well with all areas. This manor is an illustration of fusion between modern composition architecture wise and a semi-classical approach in the interior spaces with minimalism.
The architecture mainly translates the house into three different blocks. One being a white block, which serves as an entrance into the house. Second being the wooden block clad with sesame wood pattis and the third is the double-heighted skewed block. Together these three create an interesting skewed façade with straight lines.
Our ideology is mainly based on a minimalistic approach where less is more. The layout is also quite organized and at the same time interactive. The layout is such that each area is well connected with outdoors and there is perfect communication between public and private areas of the house. The bridge between public and private areas is the dining room, which is very well connected with living room, home theatre, kitchen one side and all bedrooms the other side. It also flows into the outdoor areas consisting of swimming pool and Zen garden.
The huge and shallow water body creates a nice mirroring effect of the front façade and also doubles up as a soft water feature. The beautiful walkway of the house, which floats on this water body, leads one to the entry foyer where an antique wooden chest with three welcoming statues awaits one. The tree motif on rough wall creates a wonderful backdrop of this area. The skylight enhances this rough wall with natural daylight during daytime. The foyer is placed such that it connects to the living as well as the home theatre.
As one enters into the living room, one can sense the huge scale of this 16 ft high room. One corner of the living room has a full-length glass façade overlooking the water body and garden in front. On another side it is connected to the swimming pool and open deck. There is a slit window on one of the walls with flower motif cutout, which creates a beautiful sciagraphy in the main hall during daytime. The living then leads to the dining area and kitchen.
The home theatre on the other side of the foyer is designed such that guests can directly enter into this room without creating any disturbance to the regular activities of the house. It is also connected to the dining room. Special attention has been given to this 18’x25’ room as far as the acoustics and comfort are concerned.
Powder toilet is well placed between the home-theatre and dining and also has connectivity with all public areas. It has a cutout in the slab, which provides natural sunlight.
Kitchen, which is on the other end of the dining, is connected with the internal functional areas and external utility areas. One of the walls here has a hanging working platform placed in a tall window. This wall falls in the Zen garden and provides for a nice view. The kitchen is well equipped with all modern amenities and functionalities.
The main hub of the house is the dining where all the public and private areas converge. The twelve-seater dining table here has an antique finish with a similar looking divider and crockery unit. Two large openings on both sides of the dining connect it to the swimming pool on one side and Zen garden on the other. This area further flows into the central foyer of the house which is connected to the four bedrooms on ground floor and a staircase which leads to another bedroom on first floor.
A beautiful puja room is very well placed in this central foyer. A custom designed art lamp with the theme ‘Journey’ is hung from the double height in the center of the staircase. This lamp is designed and conceptualized by Mr. Dipen Gada himself and executed by Mr. Manish Maheshwari. This is one of the unique features of the house. An interesting painting and a colorful sit-out also form a part of this central foyer. Sunlight coming through a slab cutout washes the foyer with ample amount of natural daylight.
All bedrooms are well ventilated as well as connected to the outdoors greens. Dark toned wooden flooring has been used for these areas; also they are quite airy. The large master bedroom has a custom made wooden bed. A family collage on one wall adds to the warmth of the room. This room is internally connected to a spacious study room, which leads to the outdoor garden and gazebo. The master’s bathroom is a huge 15’x18’ space with a skylight above the bathtub. The main feature of this area is the four niches in a wall, which exemplify the theme and are beautified by candles done by cereei candles. The dented silver mirror frame highlights the wall with basin. All bathrooms are quite roomy, have a neat arrangement and are done in Italian marble.
Accessories for this project were sourced from Ahmedabad and Bombay. Some of them were custom made for the project, such as the wooden artifact with glass flowers in the living room.
Overall the project was completed as a result of teamwork and Amin’s were delivered with their ‘Dream Home’.
Project Fact file
- Client’s Name – Mr. Amin
- Built up Area – 8240 Sq. Ft
- Design Team – Dipen Gada, Rinkesh Panchal, Shruti Patel, Shalini Pereira, Dolly Pari.
- Site Coordinator – Vikas Patel
- Photography – Tejas Shah
- Text – Shilpa Bhagchandani